Osprey

Taken this morning on the columbia river.
300mm f4 with 2x extender at 1/60th of a sec at f5.6 ISO 100.
Some of the branches may be a little distracting but I am not good enough with photoshop to clone them out.

Wade, this is really nice. I like the positioning of the bird, his head in particular. I think you could lighten up the facial area and it would have even more impact. I am not too bothered by the spare branches. It would be pretty bare without them...

I like the dramatic side lighting and the simple background as it ties in with the osprey and local branches. How did you get a 2x extender to function without 2 stops loss of aperture?

I don't mind the branches either. I like the golden light touches on the feathers, but perfection would have been to have them on the front of the bird instead of the back. (You should have moved the sun to the other side .)

These are really cool birds and I think you captured this one perfectly. The stand alone branches above/right of the osprey should be taken out. Looks easy enough, since its surrounded by simple blue sky.